Amy Lu's View

There are some things that I move quickly on (maybe too quickly): Replying to an email, buying tickets to a concert, blaming Chad for something. But for other things, I can put off making a decision or taking action for a long time. 

I often delay making purchases. It’s not because I’m not materialistic–I like things just like any average American–but because shopping can be hard. I frequently find myself overwhelmed by choices. Replacing things is especially challenging, because it usually involves getting rid of the original item and that disposal can create several logistical and environmental headaches. 

I also have a tendency to immediately forget about problems once I’m out of the situation, and prefer to make do with what I’m familiar with, rather than investing time in learning something new. For example…our coffee maker was leaking water for months, but I would forget about it until I encountered the pool of water every morning, and would just think “Oh well, wiping this up is easier than buying and figuring out a new coffee maker.” 

Chad did eventually get us a new coffee maker (and taught me how to use it without us getting into a fight!) but for the last ten or so years I’ve been thinking I need a new curling iron. Not because it was broken or I didn’t like it, but because it didn’t have an automatic shut off. This missing feature led to countless instances of me compulsively checking to see if I turned it off, which was always stressful when I was running late but yet ran back in the house (or asked Chad to) so the curling iron situation could be verified. 

But this era of curling iron anxiety is about to end, as I just ordered a new curling iron with an automatic shut off feature. 

What finally inspired me to take action? This blog! Well, at least in a roundabout way. I’ve been lacking in blogging inspiration, so I decided to try using a conversation starter card by Esther Perel* to generate ideas. I don’t want to call this a “blog challenge” exactly, but I wanted to make a good faith effort to write about whatever question was on the card I randomly picked. The conversation prompt on my card was “An item I’ve been holding on to for too long…” 

Wow, I could answer that in so many ways–everything from the bottle of barbecue sauce in the basement fridge that we will never, ever, consume, to the pair of underwear that I’m highly unlikely to ever wear again but hang on to “just in case.” Maybe I will blog about those items someday (and what case I’m expecting my old underwear might be appropriate for), but I settled on the curling iron. 

Not too long ago, my curling iron DID come apart–the wand part that I wrap my hair around came out of the base. In typical Amy Fashion, I just crammed it back together and forgot about it. But just a few days ago, it came apart again while I was getting ready in the dressing room for the one-act play I’m currently in. This caused some slight embarrassment that combined with a couple of “I’ve never seen a curling iron that looks like that”** comments from castmates put the curling iron at the top of my mind. 

So as I thought, “I could blog about holding on to my old curling iron for too long,” I realized I could actually buy a new curling iron!

Now I wasn’t going to go wild and actually go to a store or anything, so I bought one online. And now I know why I waited so long to buy one–it was surprisingly hard to find a curling iron with the type of wand I wanted that had an automatic shut-off feature. 

I hope I like my new curling iron, and that it is easy to learn to use. And I hope I do actually get rid of my current one (sticking it in a drawer somewhere rather than throwing it away isn’t going to help the environment) 

Maybe my new curling iron will even look less “unusual” and more like a curling iron and less like another device. 

*Yes, I’ve probably been holding on to these cards for far too long without using them–is that meta? I’m not sure who I thought I would have card-inspired conversations with…StanLee?

**My curling iron looks like a sex toy. I’m not sure this is appropriate to include in my blog, but I figure if this observation is buried in a footnote, I’m being discrete and classy. Now, I’m not 100 percent certain this is what my castmates meant by their comment (surprisingly I didn’t ask) but I think it’s a distinct possibility.